


ignotum per ignotius (the unknown by the more unknown)

by sinequanon



Series: substantiating shadows [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV), The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Matchmaker Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 00:55:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10478439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinequanon/pseuds/sinequanon
Summary: There's a difference between knowing that someone is your soulmate and acting on that knowledge (and if Damon isn't careful, Stiles is going to take matters into his own hands).ORKlaus is obtuse, and Damon is obstinate. It's meant to be.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is TVD-centric, so if you're mostly here for the TW, you might be a little disappointed.
> 
> Otherwise, please enjoy!

“The witches have hired a matchmaker to attend their annual gathering,” Elijah announced as he sat down for dinner. “Marcel has requested that we try to engage his services as well; evidently, he’s rather well-respected and hiring him would be quite the boon for us.”

Rebekah snorted, Klaus and Kol both chuckled, Caroline groaned, and Bonnie rolled her eyes. Only Freya noticed the concerned glances exchanged between the Salvatore brothers at the news.

“Matchmakers are delusional at best, and charlatans at worst. Surely, the ancestors are against such a charade?” Klaus asked.

“Actually, there have been some very powerful matchmakers throughout history,” Freya mentioned wistfully, carefully watching both Stefan’s and Damon’s reactions. “That's how I met man I loved.”

Both brothers looked to her at that, something like relief flashing through their eyes before Damon settled back into his mask of indifference and Stefan into his of careful concern.

“Freya--” Rebekah began, breaking into her musings.

“Most matchmakers have more than one talent, so it's easier to pretend they don't have that particular skill; far too many matchmakers have been killed over the centuries by jealous or jilted lovers.” The Original witch gave a carrot on her plate a particularly forceful stab and looked back at the others. “The woman who matched me was burned as a witch,” she said softly, “because she refused to endorse a match between a wealthy lady and the unfortunate man that she desired.” Her eyes flashed angrily at the memory. “It's true that many people who call themselves matchmakers today don't have the gift, because those that truly possess the skill are careful to hide it for their own protection. But there _are_ true matchmakers, and we would be fortunate to meet one.”

“We’ll keep a close eye on the man, just in case,” Elijah assured her.

“What is this supposed matchmaker’s name?” Kol asked skeptically, sharing a disbelieving look with an equally unimpressed Caroline. Both of them had dealt with charlatan matchmakers before, and weren't eager to repeat the experience.

“Stilinski, I believe.”

It was only because Freya was still watching them that she saw Damon tense and Stefan twitch ever so slightly at the name, and she resolved to ask the brothers (who had so recently escaped from their troubles in Mystic Falls, and whom she was coming to care for greatly) about their connection to Mr. Stilinski as soon as they had a private moment.

<> <>

“Stop worrying so much, Damon,” Stefan admonished as he watched his brother pace the room. “This is one of the safest places Stiles could be right now. We won't let anything happen to him. Plus, you and I both know that Peter will eviscerate anything that so much as looks at him cross-eyed.”

Damon blew out a breath and glared half-heartedly at his brother. They were equally worried about their cousin, he knew, but Stefan had always been better at letting Stiles make his own mistakes, while Damon had threatened more than once to move to Iceland and drag Stiles and Uncle Noah with him.

(This was not an idle a threat as one might assume.)

Damon was just glad that he and Stefan were alone, because anyone who got a look at them right now would know that something was wrong, and most of them would not have the self-control to not to poke for information. The Mikaelsons might be friends now, but there was a difference between trusting the Originals with Bonnie and Caroline, and trusting them with Stiles.

It had taken hours for the brothers to convince Bonnie and Caroline that they didn't need babysitters, and to take the Mikaelsons up on their offer to see the city, so that they could freely talk about how they were going to keep Stiles safe without letting anyone know that they were related to the young man.

“I'm sure that Nik and the others will help us look out for him,” Stefan reasoned. “Freya seemed pretty adamant about that without even having met him.”

It wasn't like Stiles couldn't take care of himself, either. Having Stefan and Damon in his life, and then being involved in all of the supernatural drama in Beacon Hills, had assured that their cousin was no damsel in distress (even if he sometimes liked to act like one).

Still, he was their human cousin, who lived across the country where they couldn't quickly reach him, in a town where deaths were as common as births. He and Uncle Noah were their last remaining blood family, and Stefan was thankful every day that Stiles had reached out to the Salvatore brothers and aggressively pulled them in until they were part of the Stilinski family as well. It had been such an amazing feeling, having someone openly care about them, that the brothers had no power to resist the then nine-year-old Stiles’s overtures of friendship, and it was a relationship that both Damon and Stefan guarded fiercely.

Over the years, Stefan had taught Stiles how to ride a bike and play chess; Damon had taught Stiles how to look out for himself, how to fight back, and he had been the first person Stiles told about his matchmaking abilities.

Damon would burn the world down if something happened to Stiles, especially now that he was old enough to travel to people who requested his services. Like these witches, for example. How the hell had they gotten Stiles's name in the first place?

The thing that scared Damon the most, though, was the thought that Stiles might use his matchmaking abilities on him.

Stiles had explained it to Damon once as being like that word problem in mathematics class where the two trains leave the station at different times and at different speeds and you're supposed to figure out how long train A takes to make it to the next station based on how fast train B is traveling.

Soulmates, Stiles said, were like the trains, and both of them had to reach the same station at the same time in order to make the perfect connection. Any sort of delay could mean that soulmates wouldn't meet each other for months, years, or even lifetimes. The good news was that most people lived perfectly happy and loving lives without their soulmates, with other people who were compatible with them in slightly different ways.

The difference between finding a compatible soul and finding a soulmate, though, was the difference between a cozy fire and an inferno.

With Bonnie, Damon felt the fire, and it felt _good_. If Bonnie wanted to try things out between them, Damon knew instinctively that it would be the type of relationship that other people would envy. In fact, Caroline had not so subtly been pushing the two of them together for months, hoping that her two friends would find comfort in each other.

Unfortunately, Damon had felt the inferno, too. With Klaus, the very first time they had met. Considering the two of them were trying to kill each other at the time, though, it really wasn't the best time for the soulmate conversation.

Fortunately, Klaus either hadn't felt the connection or didn't recognize it for what it was, because he made no effort to pursue Damon after their first encounter in Mystic Falls, and Damon felt pathetically grateful for the hybrid’s oversight.

Ten years later, the conversation still hadn't happened, and Klaus had given no sign that he was even remotely interested in Damon beyond their fragile connection through Klaus’s friendships with Stefan and Caroline. Damon did his best to avoid the Mikaelsons altogether (which had proven amazingly difficult even with them living mostly in New Orleans) and let everyone assume that he was just an antisocial jerk.

Stefan suspected something, of course, but one of the things Damon had learned from Stiles was the ability to talk while saying nothing, and there was no way he was going to pursue Klaus only to have his heart ripped out--literally or figuratively--because the bastard wasn't ready to see the truth.

Of course, it might not matter if Klaus was ready or not, if Stiles ended up in a room with both of them. The problem with matchmakers was that sometimes they were compelled to put two people together, regardless of what the soulmates themselves wanted. In those cases, the matchmakers were literally driven by their magic to make the match without being fully cognizant of their actions.

If Stiles tried to push he and Klaus together, aware or not, who knew what the fallout would look like?

“What do you want to do?” Stefan asked, breaking Damon out of his thoughts.

“We’re going to have to take a page out of Creeper’s book and stalk him from the sidelines; I'll call Peter and let him know that we’re going to be around.” Damon reached for his phone, and paused to huff out a laugh. “Twenty bucks says Stiles already knows that we're here and is expecting our call.”

As it turned out, Stiles _had_ been expecting their call, but not in regards to New Orleans. Instead, he peppered Damon with questions about the hot blonde with the sexy accent that he kept dreaming about, forcing Damon to give his cousin wholly unconvincing answers that only piqued both his and Stefan’s curiosity.

“Hot blonde with an accent?” Stefan inquired after Stiles had hung up. “Is there something I should know?”

Damon scowled. “Drop it, Stefan. This is about Stiles, not me.”

“But it's your soulmate--”

A door crashed open somewhere in the mansion, and Damon took the opportunity to make a run for it before Stefan could finish his question.

<> <>

Stefan wasn't worried, exactly, when Damon skipped dinner that evening, but Stefan couldn't imagine what was so horrible about Damon's soulmate that he would refuse to talk about it. It wasn't a fear of soulmates in general--the Salvatores had seen Stiles help too many people for that--and it was obvious by his brother's reaction that Damon had known exactly who Stiles was seeing in his dreams. Unfortunately, that meant that Stefan had a few burning questions. Who was Damon’s soulmate? How long had his brother been feeling the connection? Had he been waiting for so long that he had given up on his soulmate altogether?

Of course, the potential between Damon and Bonnie was still there as well. Did Damon want to explore something with her rather than his soulmate? Was he worried about hurting Bonnie’s feelings even though, as far as Stefan knew, they were nothing more than close friends?

The questions were swimming in his head throughout dinner, to the point where the others were all sending him concerned looks, but he didn't notice until Caroline poked him in the arm.

“Damon’s a big boy, you know. He can take care of himself,” she reminded him.

“That's not…” Stefan trailed off.

Thankfully, Freya took pity on him and addressed the table. “Vincent has asked me to provide their guest with a place to stay in return for the matchmaker’s services for the vampires while he’s in town,” she announced firmly over the sounds of the others’ protests. “He’ll be arriving tomorrow afternoon.”

“You can't do that!” Kol protested.

“I can, and I did.” She bared her teeth at the rest of her siblings. “Be nice.”

<> <>

None of the residents of the mansion knew quite how to react to the tall, lanky boy that showed up the next afternoon. He seemed impossibly young, but he had old, old eyes that made more than one vampire shiver in discomfort at the thought of what exactly the young man was seeing when he looked at them. The feeling only lasted for a moment though, before the young man seem to shake himself back to the present and his face lit up with excitement.

“So, I can't thank you enough for putting us up for the next few days. I know you’re not all that fond of matchmakers, so I'll try and stay out of your hair,” he addressed the group, though Klaus noticed the sideways glance the young man sent him as he spoke. “I'll mostly be out and about, anyway, so I don't think it will be a problem, and Peter won't start anything, will you, Peter?”

Peter made a face. “I resent the implication, darling.”

“Sure, you--” he stopped suddenly and focused on Freya. His eyes softened as he looked at her.

“He loved you very much,” he said finally. Then he grinned and took her hand. “Try not to worry, you'll see him again; your aunt’s spell just pushed everything out of sync for a little while. Soulmates are awfully hard to separate once they've found each other, though, so you won't have to wait too much longer.”

Freya looked startled, then touched. “Thank you,” she said, and squeezed his hand.

<> <>

Klaus would have liked to say that the matchmaker was a completely useless creature that he would be all too happy to be rid of, but that would be a lie. Stiles had almost immediately charmed the entire Quarter (his family included) to the point where no one would care even if he did suddenly reveal his matchmaking abilities as some sort of ruse.

Which, Klaus had to admit, he was ever more certain weren't a ruse at all.

Freya, Elijah, and Bonnie had all attended the witches’ ball with Stiles and Peter, and had come home looking both shocked and awed. Bonnie, who had encountered more than one false matchmaker over the years, couldn't stop gushing about how different Stiles’s magic felt from all the other witches, and how beautiful it had been when he matched a pair in front of everyone. Even Elijah had said that it was one of the most euphoric experiences of his life. Freya, surprisingly, had simply claimed exhaustion and retired to her room right after Stiles and Peter.

When they held a similar fete for the vampires, it was equally as enlightening. Stiles assured a handful of vampires that their soulmates were out there, and gave them advice on how those people might be found. Those that didn't have soulmates still got to enjoy a pleasant evening and the engaging young man’s company.

In all of the excitement, it took longer than it should have for Klaus to notice the distance that the Salvatores were suddenly putting between themselves and the rest of the house. They were friendly enough when they could be found, but more often than not, they avoided everyone except Freya and strangely, Peter.

Somehow, the sudden separation between the Salvatores and Mikaelsons made something in the hybrid’s chest hurt. Klaus would worry that Stiles had matched his sister to one of the Salvatores except that Stiles had already spoken of Freya’s soulmate, and the brothers looked just as serious as ever.

In fact, now that Klaus had noticed, it looked like they were following the matchmaker around, and that Peter was making no move to stop them. And what exactly was Freya chatting about with Stiles and Stefan?

As if they had heard his thought, three heads turned in his direction, and Klaus genuinely had to quell the urge to take a step back at the considering looks in their eyes.

“Please, Nik,” Rebekah said, appearing in front of him and pressing a champagne flute into his hand, “can you at least pretend to have a good time? You’re going to scare the guests away with that scowl of yours.”

By the time he had moved Rebekah out of the way, the group had vanished, and Klaus was unable to spot them again for the rest of the night.

<> <>

The next morning, Damon walked into the Mikaelson kitchen, took one look at Klaus, and walked out again, much to the confusion of everyone present.

No one saw Damon for the rest of the day.

That evening, Freya insisted that everyone be present for Stiles’s farewell dinner, and the hybrid found himself hoping to have a conversation with the young man, if only to find out why he had stolen his friends away.

(Klaus got his wish, though not quite the way he was expecting.)

For his part, Stiles waited until dessert before turning to Niklaus with his old eyes. “Cards on the table time, here,” he said, drawing everyone's attention. “What exactly do you have against my cousin?”

Klaus stared at him as if he had grown another head, though the hybrid took some comfort in knowing he wasn't the only one to do so. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

Stiles looked exaggeratedly from the Mikaelsons to the Salvatores and back before blowing out a breath in surprise and leveling a knowing look at Damon and Stefan.

“Really, guys? I appreciate the gesture, but it's totally unnecessary,” he told his cousins.

“Some matchmaker in Paris just got kidnapped a week ago, Stiles; we weren't about to let the entire city of New Orleans have a shot at you,” Damon said flatly.

“It's our right to worry,” Stefan added.

“Wait,” Caroline broke in. “Damon and Stefan are your cousins?”

“That means that…” Rebekah trailed off, gaping at her brother.

“You don’t feel the pull, there in your chest?” Stiles asked Klaus, before leaning over to poke him in the sternum.

Klaus frowned. There was no way that _he_ could have a soulmate. “I didn't--”

“And you,” Stiles said, turning to Damon, “you should know better than to ignore this kind of connection. I don't want to get all mushy here, and say it's a gift, but it's totally a gift.”

“He never said anything,” Damon grumbled. “I wasn't sure he could feel it.”

Stiles rolled his eyes and took a bite of cake. “You guys are idiots. Just kiss each other already and get this show on the road, will you? You're giving me a headache.”

“I don't know what you expect to happen--” Klaus began, even as Damon came out of his chair with a growl and stalked toward the hybrid.

“Shut up,” he told Klaus, and pulled him in for a kiss that left the hybrid reeling, and everyone else staring.

The dining room was silent, save for the sound of fork against plate as Stiles nonchalantly ate his cake, until Peter and Freya exchanged pleased, knowing looks and the former elbowed the younger Salvatore in the side.

“You owe me twenty bucks,” Peter gleefully informed Stefan.

**Author's Note:**

> Next week: the next fic in my fairy tale series, featuring Chris/Peter/Stiles.
> 
> See you then, and thanks for reading!


End file.
